Sunday, October 15, 2006

yakitori with kuri gohan

We've had some excitement over the past couple of days.

Late Wednesday night, Satoshi had chest pains and was admitted to a nearby hospital, they did some tests and it was determined that stress and cholesterol were the culprits. I was so relieved that it wasn't a blocked artery or a heart attack! He has been taking it easy this past weekend and will be back to work on Monday. Can you believe that he actually wanted to go to work on Saturday?

Anyway, I made us some lightly simmered chicken for dinner yesterday, I've made this before and posted about it (here), since there was a lot of gravy left over. I decided to thicken it up and use it to coat yakitori (barbecue chicken on skewers).

I also made yaki kuri gohan (roasted chestnut rice) with roasted chestnuts and added them to our rice just before cooking in the rice cooker. I bought the chestnuts pre-peeled and roasted them in the oven for about 30 minutes--15 minutes on each side. I then washed 2 cups of rice and added a tablespoon of zakkokumai (multi-grains), 1/2 tablespoon of mirin (sweet rice wine) , a teaspoon of shoyu (soy sauce) and a teaspoon of salt, plus the 2 cups of water that is needed to cook the rice in the rice cooker.

I got the recipe for the rice from this book "Soshoku no susume-Aki (Autumn)" by Makuuchi Hideo. His books are very interesting and recipes relatively easy to follow. Plus, all the recipes are scaled for two people! He believes that our diets should consist of 50% grains (rice), 30% veggies, seaweed and potato, 10% legumes and 10% animal products (mainly fish). While I haven't tried all of the recipes yet, I am slowly making my way through them.

(Sorry the photo didn't come out too good.)

Here's dinner....yakitori, yaki kuri gohan and horenso salad (spinach salad). The rice was chewy and chestnuts tasty. The store bought yakitori was jazzed up with the homemade sauce.

Have a good week!

p.s. I recently got this plant called kimono keito (feathery cockscomb), very pretty colors and fluffy! I think these flowers can be dried.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kat, I hope he will get better soon!

2kamuela47 said...

I pray that Satoshi gets better. I've seen that kind of rice minus the chestnuts at lunch wagons.

They use that as the brown rice alternative. Can you believe that?

Take care!

Anonymous said...

Ahh, my uncle once had to go to hospital as he thought he was having a heart attack - they said it was an anxiety attack from too much stress. From reading your blog, it sounds like Satoshi is very dedicated to his job, but remind him that his health is far more important. Perhaps some meditation or yoga?

The rice and the yakitori both look fabulous, particularly the sauce drizzled on top! Must give this sauce a try next time I make chicken skewers :D

K and S said...

Thanks Bea & Laura!

Thanks Ellie! I think the sauce may be good on any type of chicken dish. I also added a star anise in when making the sauce for the lightly simmered style chicken.

Take care and thanks for your kind words. Will definitely pass them on to Satoshi.

Kat

Anonymous said...

hope satoshi's doing well! o-daiji ni!

K and S said...

Thanks Grant!

Will give him your well wishes.

Take care.

Kat

Liz said...

First, glad to hear he is okay!

Second, no I'm not surprised he wanted to work on Saturday. He's Japanese right? ;-)

Take care! Kiyotsukette ne!

K and S said...

Thanks Liz!

Kat